Many of you will have read the account of the rape of a girl by a young male athlete from Stanford University recently. The girl had attended the same party as her assailant and had drunk a considerable amount. So much, that she was not conscious when the assault occurred.

The case has attracted a lot of attention, partly because of the manner in which the defence was conducted, because of a letter from the boy’s father begging for clemency because the boy had such a bright future ahead of him, and partly because of the eventual leniency of the sentence, just 6 months. The family, the legal team and (it would appear) the judge excused the behaviour on account of the defendant’s promising future. What about the girl’s future?

Parents reading the account will, no doubt, have had strong reactions, whether you have sons or daughters or your children are still much younger than this boy or are in the later teenage years. Most parents who’ve spoken to me about this case are appalled at the manner of the young defendant, his legal team and his father when he suggested to the judge that his son should not have his promising career as a swimmer jeopardised by “20 minutes of action.” So it begs the question what should this dad have done? What should we do when our children are in the wrong? This is a most difficult position for a parent to be in and one where we have to be courageous and live out our values if we are to really help our children at the eleventh hour. As much as we might think we have communicated our values to our children they will still do wrong sometimes. It also prompts the further question, how do we prevent situations like this arising in the first place?

For the record I have been in that unenviable position (albeit in a minor way) of receiving that most unwanted call from the school. When my son was very young he hit another child in the playground and caused a nose-bleed. He was suspended from school. It didn’t feel minor at the time.

We are usually quick to judge other parents and you might think that I had not brought my son up with proper values about using force. Well, we thought we had. But he was 7 or 8 years old and very impulsive. His self-esteem was low, with an as yet undiagnosed learning difficulty and he regularly felt humiliated at school. That does not excuse the behaviour but it did serve to explain it and to direct our strategies. When we excuse we do nothing. When we seek to explain we are trying to understand it. His upbringing was of course still a work in progress; he was still learning. And to be frank at that stage my husband and I were not particularly skilled. This episode was one of the catalysts that sent us to take a parenting course that transformed our lives!

How do you pass on the values that you really care about to your children? How do you equip them with those standards that would allow them by the time they go to university to know how to behave toward a drunken girl at a party and for those values to be so embedded that they would guide your child’s actions even if he was drunk himself?

Parents model those values I hear you say. Of course this is a really big part of how we pass on our values. But the father of this aspiring undergraduate may never have assaulted anyone in front of his son. Our values get passed on in much more basic ways when they are much younger. While the boy in this case may not have witnessed outright physical violence in his own family, what did he absorb about respecting others generally and particularly toward women, did his parents discipline him by using force when he was young and was he held accountable for his actions growing up? In particular as his sporting prowess grew was he put on a pedestal and excused certain behaviours?

In Rosalind Wiseman’s excellent book Ringleaders and Sidekicks she talks about how being a top athlete gives a boy exalted status and how those talented sportsmen are often not held to account for their actions. I enjoyed her story of a wise coach who observed such behaviours in one of his team. When the team was travelling interstate for a match this particular boy pushed to the front of the queue when boarding the plane. This behaviour may not seem like much in itself but it is a small example of thinking oneself better than others. The coach took the unusual action of making the boy apologise to all the passengers in the cabin over the public address system. When adults take steps over small behaviours the values get embedded.

We parents pass on our values when:

We are clear about what our values are

We talk overtly about our values often and point out examples of those qualities in the children and others

We model them ourselves, explicitly making decisions by reference to those principles

We require it of the children, sometimes through explicit rules.

We do not excuse unacceptable behaviour but we teach our children to behave in accordance with those values.

When children get things wrong it isn’t effective to get mad at them but we do need to hold them accountable. At The Parent Practice we recommend The Mistakes Process which helps kids recognise why what they did wasn’t a good thing to do and to make amends for it. We believe in redemption. When our children do something wrong we want to forgive them but forgiveness depends on there being genuine remorse. That is much more likely when parents discipline without anger and judgment.

So what should this dad have done? Of course he should have stood by his son. But that doesn’t mean condoning or trying to excuse his behaviour. He should have supported his boy to take responsibility for his actions, like a man. And we know that would have taken a great deal of courage. But if the father can show it, maybe the son can too.

In what ways were you held accountable as a child? How have you required your children to make amends? Do share your stories with us.

The sensational story of the 7 year old Japanese boy Yamato Tanooka who was left in the woods by his parents as a form of discipline and then got lost has of course attracted all sorts of comment, with much criticism of the parents. But there has been little discussion about what the parents were trying to do and whether it was effective.

In case you’ve missed it (because you’ve been lost in the woods yourself?) Yamato had been throwing stones at cars and people and his parents decided he needed to be taught a lesson. Their buttons had been pushed. They’d had enough and decided to take action. Most of us would applaud them at this point –we don’t want to have kids pelting us with pebbles while their parents smile benignly at them, saying ‘boys will be boys’. (You know you’ve seen similar).

They put the boy out of the car and drove off intending to return in a few minutes. The boy, apparently quite distressed, ran after the car but got disorientated and took a wrong turn so when the parents returned to the spot he was gone. He went some distance along a track until he found shelter where he was found, several days later, physically unharmed.

Imagine how those parents felt. The terrible fear for the boy (there were bears in those woods), the fear for themselves (which showed up in them lying to the authorities about how the boy came to be missing), the guilt and shame (so clearly expressed in images of his poor father hanging his head). Who knows how it had happened. Maybe one parent was more angry than the other so there was conflict between them. Maybe they’d given several warnings already and felt really disrespected when the boy continued his behaviour. Maybe they thought it was essential to do something dramatic to reassert their authority and teach the boy a lesson. Generally when we make mistakes in our discipline the consequences aren’t the potential loss of life of our children and they’re not played out in the full glare of media attention.

When my middle son was just a little bit older than Yamato he too engaged in some stone throwing activity with his cousin (boys and projectiles!) –in his case off a high-rise balcony, oblivious of the effect on cars below. I’m pretty sure if I’d had some bear-infested woods nearby at the time I’d have thought that was a pretty good option! In our case this was part of a series of incidents which very clearly showed us how little we were in control of this boy and so we were feeling powerless, angry and embarrassed. Our buttons were being pushed too! Luckily my husband and I had recently started the parenting course that was the beginning of The Parent Practice journey, so we had a few emerging skills to hand.

A key message we had learnt was that discipline has got to be about teaching, not just revenge for the wrong-doing. We talk about ‘teaching children a lesson’ but we have to be careful that the child learns the lesson we intend.

When the Yamato story broke many people rang in to a radio programme to which I was listening with their own stories of discipline in childhood. A surprising number talked about their parents putting them out of cars and driving off, only to return a few moments later. What do our children learn from this? Momentarily we learn that if we are really bad our parents will abandon us. This breaks a fundamental primal bond between parent and child, causing great fear and a belief that we must be truly awful people. Then when the parent returns we learn that they were bluffing. So we learn not to trust their word. Even if we don’t abandon our children in the woods we frequently threaten to leave our children in shops when they won’t come as quickly as we want. It can make a small child hurry up (older children know we don’t mean it) but they do so out of fear and they get the message that our care for them is conditional upon them doing what we say. While they couldn’t articulate it they feel manipulated and controlled and that feeling is at the heart of much poor behaviour.

You may be wondering what we did with our own stone-throwing miscreant. Luckily there were other parents (my sister and her husband) involved which I think helped us to stay calm. (It doesn’t always have that effect-embarrassment can make us do weird things in our attempts to demonstrate our authority.) We agreed a course of action together. We calmly explained to our sons why it was wrong. Although you’d think they’d know, the impulse of the moment hijacked their thinking brains. We then involved them in making amends. The boys had to admit to the manager of the building what had happened and the parents had to undertake to pay for the damage to the cars. The boys were to earn the money to repay the parents by doing extra jobs, for a very long time. But at no point did we indicate that the boys were no longer worthy of our love or care. Our boys learnt a lesson from this episode about taking responsibility…and also that the family would tell the story at their expense, but with humour, for years to come!

What is the craziest thing your parents did by way of discipline? What about you? Do share with us your experiences of discipline that really teaches what you want your child to learn. www.theparentpractice.com/blog

An article appeared in PsyPost (a psychology and neuroscience news website) this week about how children confuse simple words like ‘and’ with ‘or’ which had The Parent Practice team excitedly sending emails back and forth (don’t laugh it’s to your benefit!)

Apparently young children (under the age of 6 at least) confuse the word ‘or’ with ‘and’ so that when parents offer cake or ice cream children hear ‘cake and ice cream’. Doesn’t that explain a lot?

Researchers in linguistics at MIT and a team at Carleton University have conducted studies with children between the ages of 3 and 6 and found that there are subtle differences between how adults and children clarify the meaning of sentences. Both adults and children test out the meaning of statements. Take the sentence “Max ate some of the biscuits.” Now suppose you find out that Max actually ate all of the biscuits. So the sentence “Max ate some of the biscuits” is still technically correct, but it would be more accurate to say, “Max ate all of the biscuits.”

Adults can make this distinction – we can compare the two sentences and consider the implications of using ‘all’ or ‘some’ and recognise that each alternative spells out a specific new meaning. But guess what? The researchers discovered that children can’t make the same distinctions as adults. When they hear ‘cake or ice-cream’ they are very much focussed on two of the three words! And the subtle and important implications of ‘or’ is missed.

What can parents do? Should we not offer children choices? Offering choices is generally thought to be a good idea as children at this age have so few opportunities to make decisions for themselves and can feel very frustrated and powerless.

But choices have downsides. If you have a child in this age bracket you may have watched them choose cake, only to be terribly disappointed with their choice later and wished they’d chosen ice cream… and have a meltdown. When a child realises that making a choice means giving up on something or losing something it takes maturity they may not have yet to handle the responsibility of that choice. Their pre-frontal cortex which governs perspective and the ability to weigh the consequences of decisions will not be fully mature until their 20s. Under the age of 6 the brain is still in its infancy and is largely governed by emotions.

So what do we do? Not give them any choices at all?

No. We think there is still merit in giving choices for under 6s (perhaps less for under 3s) but with this knowledge we can be very clear about the potential for confusion and support our children to handle the implications of their choices.

“William would you like some dessert? You can have yoghurt or fruit. You know that means just one. I’m going to put the one you choose on the table and the other one in the fridge. That will be for tomorrow. Which one for today and which one for tomorrow?”

William chooses fruit but later wants yoghurt. “Oh you want both the fruit and the yoghurt. That’s hard for you to remember that Mummy said just one. I guess you didn’t understand that and now you feel so disappointed. Maybe you wish you’d chosen the yoghurt.” This may seem like a big fuss, especially when it’s between two fairly healthy options but the parent is supporting the child to deal with disappointment by naming the feeling.

“Hannah, you’re going to have to think carefully about how you want to spend your birthday money. There’s enough there for you to buy one thing. You liked both the bubble factory and the butterfly mosaics but you can only choose one. I’m sure you wish you could have both. And when you choose one you might feel sad later that you didn’t choose the other one. If that happens come and tell me and I’ll give you a hug. That’s the tough bit about making choices. The good bit is you get to choose something that you really like yourself. You get to be in charge of this decision.”

Giving those pesky feelings a label helps strengthen the neural pathways between the emotional part of the brain and the logical part and at is the core of developing emotional intelligence.

Does your child get to choose sometimes? Does he sometimes change his mind? Does she want both? Next time there’s a meltdown tell them you know what it’s like to really, really want something when a few minutes ago you really, really wanted something else. It’s so confusing! Let us know how you get on.

While many of us are looking forward to half term, some families will be trying to combine having some fun with preparing for exams. What can we do to support our children in the lead-up to these important days, without adding to their stress?

We all know that to ‘make a revision schedule and stick to it’ is a good idea in theory, but HOW can we do it in practice? What’s the right amount of revision? Too much, too little - how do we get the balance right? Our attempts to motivate them so easily slip into bribes and can also feel manipulative, so what can we say and do that will encourage our children to persevere and feel confident they can do what is required? On exam day what will matter is to be organised, and to manage anxiety. Giving lots of encouragement through Descriptive Praise will be very important but below are three other ideas that we know will help, but aren’t usually mentioned.

LET them do it their way and have a choice

And this doesn’t mean doing NO revision! Let your child revise his way rather than insisting he does it your way. Most children find it very hard to sit still and simply regurgitate facts and in fact being forced to be still may impede their learning. Many learn better by moving, maybe hitting or bouncing a ball, or simply walking around the room. Others are more visual and need pictures – get drawing with shapes and flow-diagrams on a white board, or blank postcards. Other children are more auditory and they may find background music helpful and not distracting. They may find making up songs or poems, or using mnemonics helpful – it doesn’t matter if these are wacky and not very serious. They just need to be memorable to your child. She remembers things differently to the way you do.

DESCRIBE how they feel – name it to tame it!

This is probably the biggest stress they’ve been under in their life, so it would be strange if there weren’t some anxiety, and maybe poor behaviour.

Our instinctive reaction is to reassure and try to push them through to feeling better about revision and exams so we say “don’t worry, it will be fine soon, it will all work out” or “You poor thing, this is just awful and unfair” or “Come along, there’s no need for all this upset, it’s just a test, you need to toughen up and get your head down, getting cross doesn’t help any of us….”

Instead we need to really listen to how they feel and then help them work their way towards a solution. For example: “I sense this is really getting you down right now. I wonder if it feels like this is all you get to do, and maybe you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe you’re scared about what will happen after you’ve tried your best….”

This doesn’t make them feel worse, or feel anything they don’t already feel, but it does make them feel connected and understood. This in itself is calming. Take care not to add “but….” afterwards because this undoes everything you’ve said so far. It’s usually best to keep quiet and hear how they respond.

And make sure that you don’t add to their stress by the way you’re talking about these exams. Scare tactics don’t usually make children perform better.

UNDERSTAND their reluctance

We can understand how they feel about revising, and still require that they do it. But we need to understand why they don’t want to do it – we often start with the assumption they are lazy, not taking it seriously, etc, and when we approach it this way, it ends up negative and confrontational. And ineffective!

Children want to do well – it’s in their nature. And they do care about the result and their future (to the extent that they can imagine their future), and they want to please us, though sometimes it may not seem that way!

If they start to believe they can’t succeed, and that we are not happy with them, they pull back from trying. Some children will bluster this out and vigorously assert they don’t care or they may simply shrug and refuse to put in much effort.

Our best approach is to face this head on. So, try “I wonder if you’re worried about trying hard, and still not getting a good mark. It’s scary to push yourself to the full, and not know whether you will achieve what you hope for. It may feel as if you’ve used up all of your brain power. In fact your brain grows the more you make it struggle with things.” This isn’t the time to go on to lecture about how this is how life works, and they have to learn to knuckle down and get on with things…..

Their real concerns don’t come out with direction questions such as “what’s wrong, what’s the matter” etc. Most children duck these questions with ‘nothing’ because they sense a judgment in the question that they are wrong to be worried etc. Empathise also with the fact that they’d just rather be playing and that other children (and adults) don’t have to be working as they are.

Make sure they do have some down time.

Remember that this stressful time will pass and think of it as an opportunity for your child to learn how to handle the stress that they will inevitably encounter in life. Encourage them to employ some anti-stress measures such as physical play and having a good laugh –maybe get them a joke book. Make sure you look after your own stress levels too…. 2 joke books.

How does your child react to stressful situations? What do you do to inject calm? Let us know your thoughts.

Friendships can be lovely - affirming, supportive and nurturing; they can bring a child out of themselves and challenge them to try things they wouldn’t on their own; friendship groups can give a sense of belonging; friends can provide emotional support; good friendships provide an opportunity for a child to air their views and work out what they believe in. Being with friends teaches trust and intimacy; negotiating with peers teaches communication skills; learning how to break up and make up is also useful. Friends can help kids through tough times.

Friendships can also be troublesome if they don’t go well. Children fall out with each other, some kids find it hard to make friends and some are bullied.

Have your children ever experienced any of the following issues?

Being excluded

Teasing/bullying, unkindness, meanness, name calling, put downs – children say things like ‘you can’t be my friend’, ‘you’re not in our club’. There can be quite personal slants –they call each other weird, fat, stupid, beanpole, shorty, gay, and criticise or make fun of their clothes, hair, the fact that they wear glasses, have freckles, a funny nose etc

Betrayal of confidences

Being the subject of rumours

Peer pressure, inappropriate friends/behaviour

Children being too bossy or aggressive, or not assertive enough

Not having friends. Sometimes kids have developed behaviours which aren’t conducive to forming friendships – they are insensitive to others, unable to read cues, coming too close, shouting too loud, grabbing, not knowing when to stop talking, moaning or complaining, being too needy/pleading, having a strop when things don’t go their way.

You can foster good friendships by:

Providing opportunities for children to be with other kids their age –neighbours, relatives, friends from activity groups. School will be the main meeting ground but if things go wrong in your child’s school peer group its good if they have friendship groups outside school too.

“Having a good friend will lessen the harmful effects of bullying. If you are excluded by the general peer group but have a friend who is saying, ‘you are not so bad as they say you are’, this can be enough to satisfy your need to belong. You will not be damaged if somebody special is valuing you, even if you are not valued by everyone.” Dr Michael Boulton, child psychologist, Keele University.

Modelling being with your own friends and being friendly with your partner. Model loyalty, empathy, taking into account the other’s perspective, constructive dispute resolution and managing your feelings.

Notcriticising ‘unsuitable friends’ -this may make them more appealing. You can probably limit your young child’s association with other children but as they get older this is harder to do. Your children are likely to adopt your values and be influenced by you if they get plenty of positive input from you. Point out what you don’t like about the friend’s behaviour rather than saying you don’t like them.

Helping children develop social skills. We need to remember that each child has their own temperament and this will influence how they approach social events, and other people. For example: a child who is reactive will hang back in any new situation and be unwilling to throw herself in until she is ready. Rather than dropping her into different environments in the hope that she will get used to it, we need to help her prepare for such situations. Is your child an introvert? She may prefer to be by herself or with just one friend rather than a crowd or she may need downtime after social events.

Use Descriptive Praise on an on-going basis to help your child value themselves and to highlight specific qualities that will help in friendships such as loyalty, good listening and sharing.

Play games with your children to encourage skills such as listening, turn-taking, being a good sport, using self-control, handling their feelings, considering other people’s feelings, following rules and instructions, looking for solutions and developing strategies for dealing with problems. Role play how to join a group of children, different ways of saying hello and asking to join in. Hi my name’s…what’s yours? I like your ‘Inside Out’ notebook. Do you like Joy? Practice also what to say if the child says “No, you can’t play”.

You can also use role plays to help your child work out how to stand up for herself without hurting anyone else. Practice saying something like “I don’t like it when you take my things. Stop that!”“I want to play with you but I don’t like this chasing game –it hurts when you get slapped.”

You can teach kids to read social cues from words and body language and how to gauge their impact on others and adjust accordingly, including the amount of space a person needs. Get your child to read your face and say what you’re feeling. Ask what you’re likely to do next if you’re feeling that way. Have fun with it!

Sharing demands a level of social understanding which comes with maturity. It means caring about what the other child wants as well as what he wants. Don’t expect too much of this from younger children. Show children how to take turns by playing games and by example. “I’m going to let you have some of my ice-cream because you dropped yours and I can see you’re sad.” Sharing toys provides the first experience of negotiation. First, recognise ownership so the children feel the situation is properly understood. For example: “I know it’s your car and it’s for you to decide. Hannah’s really sad. If you’d like to play with her toys sometimes maybe you could let her play with yours?” Then let them sort it out as much as possible. “Sam’s really upset. Can you think of anything else he might like to play with to cheer him up?” Descriptively praise sharing and turn-taking whenever it occurs.

Good friendships aren’t just a question of luck –show your children how to nurture them.

Before writing Real Parenting for Real Kids we surveyed our clients and asked them what their current goals were with their children. The majority said that they wanted more cooperation. Probably you too want your children to do what you ask, not just so you can have an easier life but because it’s your job to train your children into good habits for life. And for that you need some cooperation.

You may wish your child was more polite or would eat his greens or go to bed and stay in bed or focus more on his school work or try harder at swimming or would try again when he failed or do more around the house or get off his Xbox when you ask him to or get dressed promptly in the morning. You may wish your child would show more consideration for others or take responsibility when she does something wrong or wouldn’t flare up and bite your head off when she is upset about something. You may want her to do her eye exercises or stop sucking her thumb or to put her clothes in the laundry basket or to look people in the eye when they talk to her. To teach your child good habits and attitudes you’ll need them to cooperate with you.

That doesn’t mean your child can’t have an opinion or feelings about what they’ve been asked to do. I usually suggest that we don’t want to be breeding mindless automatons, but some of the parents in my classes admit they would settle for some blind compliance! If you’d like your child to listen to you more this is the place to be! Nothing opens the ears of a child (of any age) more than the skill we’re exploring here –Descriptive Praise. This is magic.

Praise, you think. That old hat! I know about praise. I try to praise my child but frankly he’s not often doing anything particularly praiseworthy. And I think kids actually get too much praise these days. Isn’t that what leads to this sense of entitlement everyone worries about?

Well yes, and no. If children are given meritless and meaningless praise all the time not only does it not have the desired effect of improving self-esteem and encouraging good behaviours but it does in fact lead to an expectation of constant praise and the worry that if they’re not being praised they must be rubbish. This is a result of the WRONG KIND OF PRAISE.

Descriptive praise is praise, but not as you know it.

Children cooperate when there is real connection between them and their parents. There is a biological imperative for a child to want to please their parent. I hear you scoff. That basic instinct can fade if the child no longer believes he can please his parent. If he hears a lot of criticism (so easy for us to lapse into this) then he will lose focus on doing what gets approval. The onus is on us adults to make the change and start noticing and commenting on the small things children get right. It’s no good just saying ‘well done’ or ‘good job’, ‘clever girl’ or ‘awesome’, ‘brilliant’ or ‘fantastic’. That kind of praise will have no meaningful effect and can make a child dependant on external approval.

Since we get more of what we pay attention to we need to notice the good stuff, rather than commenting on what’s gone wrong. Instead we need to describe to our children what they are doing right so that they can absorb that behaviour as a value and learn to self-assess. “Harry, you’re carrying that plate really carefully with your eyes on your hands. That way nothing has spilt.” “Georgia, you were really cross with Jack for turning off your video but you didn’t hit him or even yell at him – you told him it was your turn and you even gave him something else to play with. That shows me you understand that Jack finds it hard to wait. You’re teaching him patience.”

Descriptive Praise shapes behaviour more than any other tools in our parenting toolbox. We still need to have rules and we need to give instructions carefully to maximise cooperation and when our kids don’t want to do what we’re asking we’ll need to be able to empathise but Descriptive Praise is the magic that opens kids ears.

For more tools on getting the best out of your children, click here to pre-order Melissa Hood’s book Real Parenting, for Real kids at the discounted price of £13.99 until the launch date of 27t April 2016.